Anti-conservative Hate Gaslighting Propaganda Bias and Double Standards Bigotry / Intolerance / Discrimination Canada Coronavirus - COVID-19 Fake News Indoctrination / Brainwashing Leftist Policies Propaganda Race Baiting Right Wing / Alt Right Threat Subversion of country and society Totalitarianism Antifa Violence and hate Anti White Racism / Reverse Racism Censorship Health Conspiracies Globalism Systemic Racism White Privilege Climate Change Deep State Society View All Categories
gaslighting college BLM Critical Race Theory Big Pharma Corruption Vaccines Google black privilege CBC black fragility Segregation Bill Gates bigotry of low expectations Black Culture Biden View All Tags
May 11, 2021

If You Disobey a Totalitarian Government, If You Disagree With Masks or Lockdowns, You are Now An Far Right Neo Nazi Racist Fascist Hitler – ‘Pandemic of hate’: Leaders, experts warn anti-lockdown protests linked to far right

Are you against lockdowns (that don’t work), Are you against masks (that don’t work), do you want society to go back to normal like Texas, Florida, South Dakota and many other countries? Then you’re a far right racist. So stay a good little sheep and do what the government tells you to without questioning it.

OTTAWA — Online conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and protests against public health orders are helping to spread dangerous ideas laden with racism and bigotry, says a network monitoring hate groups in Canada.

The executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network said since last year people espousing hateful beliefs have linked themselves to conspiracy and anti-lockdown movements around the novel coronavirus.

“We have two pandemics: We have the actual pandemic and then we have this pandemic of hate,” Evan Balgord said.

“Things are kind of getting worse both online and offline … with maybe one pandemic, we have kind of a solution for, but the hate thing, we don’t have a vaccine for that.

Federal New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh was the latest on Monday to note a connection between anti-mask and anti-lockdown protests and far-right extremism.

His comments came as rallies against COVID-19 health orders are being staged across the country while many provincial doctors battle a deadly third wave of the pandemic.

“To brazenly not follow public-health guidelines puts people at risk and that is something that we’ve seen with extreme right-wing ideology, ” he told reporters.

These demonstrations have been met with frustration from some in the public over what they say appears to be a lack of police enforcement, and a few premiers have promised stiffer fines for COVID-19 rule-breakers.

The far right has become adept at integrating populist grievances into its own narratives and exploiting them to enhance membership, said Barbara Perry, director of the Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism at Ontario Tech University, in a recent interview.

As a result, members of the far right have turned up at virtually all of the recent anti-lockdown gatherings, “trying to lend their support to that movement, and thereby garner support and sympathy, or solidarity, with their more extreme movement,” she said.

Balgord said such events make for “fertile hunting” for new recruits because hateful ideas are not being policed, and once someone believes in one conspiracy theory, it’s easy to believe in others.

“We now have a greatly increased number of people who are coming into close contact with racists and bigots of all stripes with more conspiracy theories,” he said.

And more than a year into the pandemic, Balgord said, organizers behind anti-lockdown protests in Vancouver, Toronto and the Prairies know figures from the country’s “racist right” are involved in their movement.

More recently, he said, some protesters have started showing up with Nazi imagery to depict themselves as being persecuted by the government.

“The racist right that we monitor and the COVID conspiracy movement are inseparable from each other at this point. We monitor them as if they are the same thing because they involve all the same people,” Balgord.

He said the network’s information is based on what it observes and the far-right figures it follows, but there is a lack of data tracking how conspiratorial thinking around COVID-19 has moved across Canada.

After Singh’s comments, Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet played down the idea of a connection between the protests and far-right extremism, saying arguments suggesting a correlation were politically motivated.

“I am absolutely certain — absolutely certain — that people which have been involved in such discussions in the last hours and days know very well that there could be no link between … two things that should not be what they are, but are not related,” he said.

The NDP leader said he sees a link between those refusing to follow public-health advice and the ideologies of the extreme right because both show a disregard for the well-being of others and put people at risk.

“There is a connection, certainly.”

Singh said declining to listen to COVID-19 health orders is dangerous and needs to be called out.

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi earlier called such demonstrations “thinly veiled white nationalist, supremacist anti-government protests” on Global’s “The West Block.”

— With files from Jim Bronskill and Christopher Reynolds

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 10, 2021.

May 10, 2021

Totalitarian coronavirus response – students suspended from college for not wearing masks outside off campus

Andover parents Kristin and Scott are speaking out on behalf of their daughter. She along with two of her friends are freshmen at UMass Amherst. A picture posted on social media of the three friends not wearing masks outside was handed over to the university and that has landed them in serious trouble.

“There was a photo sent to the administration of these girls outside off campus on a Saturday. This is why they lost a whole semester of their schooling,” Kristin said.

Since their suspension, the students have been studying remotely at their homes. However, last week they were cut off from virtual learning. They were not allowed to take their finals, so parents say their kids’ semester was a total loss, both financially and academically.

“That negates this whole semester $16,000 of money and they have to reapply for next semester. But they missed housing registration,” Scott said.

UMass Amherst released a statement saying: “Students received a number of public health messages this semester that emphasized the importance of following public health protocols and the consequences for not complying, and those messages were also shared on UMass social media channels.”

The parents disagree with the university’s decision. “One little thing happens and you’re out? Like not even like a don’t do it again, here’s some probation,” Teresa said.

May 10, 2021

Fully armed BLM, Antifa terrorists walk in middle of road, stop cars, assault and beat up driver – msm silence

The Portland Police Bureau got several calls Thursday shortly after 12 p.m. about the group, which was making its way through north Portland with ‘JFPK’ signs and drums. Witnesses reported seeing people in the crowd openly carrying firearms and wearing tactical gear.

Hall, who is a local handyman and was driving his pickup through the area, said he got stopped by the crowd in the street and other vehicles that were blocking his way along North Alberta near Michigan Avenue.

“All of a sudden these agitators come out, screaming, pounding on my truck,” Hall said.

After trying to drive around the group, Hall said he stopped and got out of his pickup because he thought he hit something.

“By this time I’ve got five people surrounding my vehicle, AR-15s, AK-47s,” Hall said.

According to Hall, people in the group were calling him derogatory, racially-charged names and pointing weapons at him. While his truck door was open, Hall said someone took his keys and a less-lethal firearm, so Hall grabbed his pistol.

“I pulled my .38 out of my right pocket and pointed it at the ground and told them if a weapon points at me again, I will shoot to eliminate the threat,” Hall said.

Hall told FOX 12 he is a disabled veteran who served in the Marine Corps and Army Reserves.

Hall said shortly after he showed he had a pistol, somebody tackled him to the ground and took the handgun. Hall says people started kicking and hitting him.

Videos posted to social media show the event unfolding, with posters praising the crowd member’s disarming of the man in captions and comments.

A neighbor who spoke to FOX 12 said she saw part of the scuffle from her window.

“It looked like he was face down and then people were kneeling on top of him,” Hannah Morris said.

Hall said he thought he was going to die, and wants to know why Portland police didn’t intervene after receiving other calls about the group. A driver near Interstate Avenue and Killingsworth reported that the crowd smashed out their back window and slashed their tires.

May 8, 2021

Disney’s Anti-White, Pro Diversity Internal Employee Indoctrination Manual

The Walt Disney Corporation claims that America was founded on “systemic racism,” encourages employees to complete a “white privilege checklist,” and separates minorities into racially-segregated “affinity groups.”

  • Don’t question minorities – they are superior to you, believe them at their word

 

 

 

 

May 8, 2021

CDC Moving Goalposts – Will Stop Counting “Breakthrough” Coronavirus Cases in Vaccinated People – After Lowering PCR Value – Artificially Lowering Coronavirus Case Counts in Vaccinated People

As more reports surface of breakthrough COVID cases, in and outside the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today said it will change how breakthrough cases are reported, effective May 14.

According to a statement on the CDC’s website, the agency said to help “maximize the quality of the data collected on cases of greatest clinical and public health importance” it will stop reporting weekly COVID breakthrough infections unless they result in hospitalization or death.

The news followed another change, announced late last month, in how PCR tests should be administered to the fully vaccinated.

Both changes will result in lower overall numbers of reports of breakthrough cases in the U.S.

A breakthrough case is recorded if a person tests positive for SARS-Cov-2 two weeks after receiving the single-dose Johnson & Johnson (J&J) shot or completing the two-dose Moderna or Pfizer vaccination.

In April, the CDC issued new guidance to laboratories recommending reducing the RT-PCR CT value to 28 cycles — but only for those fully vaccinated individuals being tested for COVID.

 

This is many months after the New York Times even suggested that the CT value was too high

May 8, 2021

Coronavirus Vaccine Makers Claim COVID Shots Are ‘95% Effective’ – Reality They Lower Chance of Getting Sick by 0.7% Only. Studies Omit Important Information

Absolute risk, simply explained, is “the likelihood that an outcome will occur.” Relative risk “compares the risk of a health event … among one group with the risk among another group.”

Pfizer told the FDA that eight (of approximately 22,000) volunteers in its vaccine group developed a PCR-confirmed case of COVID-19, versus 162 of 22,000 volunteers in the placebo group. Moderna reported a similar spread — five out of 15,000 in the vaccine group versus 90 out of 15,000 in the placebo group.

When one does the math, the Pfizer clinical trial numbers showed: “The risk reduction in absolute terms [was] only 0.7%, from an already very low risk of 0.74% [in the placebo group] to a minimal risk of 0.04% [in the vaccine group].” (Dividing 0.7 — the difference between the two groups — by 0.74 is the mathematical calculation that produced the touted “95% effective” number).

Although the eight versus 162 PCR-confirmed COVID cases in the Pfizer trial may sound like a big difference to the casual reader, Peter Doshi subsequently alerted the public to the fact that Pfizer skewed its analysis by excluding more than 3,400 individuals with non-PCR-confirmed symptoms of COVID — individuals split almost evenly across the vaccine and placebo groups.

Excluding “suspected” cases of COVID because they didn’t meet the PCR threshold:

All attention has focused on the dramatic efficacy results: Pfizer reported 170 PCR confirmed COVID-19 cases, split 8 to 162 between vaccine and placebo groups. But these numbers were dwarfed by a category of disease called “suspected COVID-19”—those with symptomatic COVID-19 that were not PCR confirmed. According to FDA’s report on Pfizer’s vaccine, there were “3410 total cases of suspected, but unconfirmed COVID-19 in the overall study population, 1594 occurred in the vaccine group vs. 1816 in the placebo group.”

Excluding all kinds of critical data from their public report:

an analysis of severe disease irrespective of etiologic agent—namely, rates of hospitalizations, ICU cases, and deaths amongst trial participants—seems warranted, and is the only way to assess the vaccines’ real ability to take the edge off the pandemic. There is a clear need for data to answer these questions, but Pfizer’s 92-page report didn’t mention the 3410 “suspected COVID-19” cases. Nor did its publication in the New England Journal of Medicine. Nor did any of the reports on Moderna’s vaccine. The only source that appears to have reported it is FDA’s review of Pfizer’s vaccine.

Suspiciously high numbers of “protocol deviations” for Pfizer:

Another reason we need more data is to analyse an unexplained detail found in a table of FDA’s review of Pfizer’s vaccine: 371 individuals excluded from the efficacy analysis for “important protocol deviations on or prior to 7 days after Dose 2.” What is concerning is the imbalance between randomized groups in the number of these excluded individuals: 311 from the vaccine group vs 60 on placebo. (In contrast, in Moderna’s trial, there were just 36 participants excluded from the efficacy analysis for “major protocol deviation”—12 vaccine group vs 24 placebo group.) What were these protocol deviations in Pfizer’s study, and why were there five times more participants excluded in the vaccine group?

Why did they do all this statistical manipulation and why are they hiding so much data from the public, you ask?

With 20 times more suspected than confirmed cases, this category of disease cannot be ignored simply because there was no positive PCR test result. Indeed this makes it all the more urgent to understand. A rough estimate of vaccine efficacy against developing COVID-19 symptoms, with or without a positive PCR test result, would be a relative risk reduction of 19% (see footnote)—far below the 50% effectiveness threshold for authorization set by regulators.

May 7, 2021

Coronavirus Totalitarianism: Ontario College of Doctors and Surgeons Warns Dr’s to Not Question Masks, Vaccines or Lockdowns – Lest They Face Investigation and Disciplinary Action

There have been isolated incidents of physicians using social media to spread blatant misinformation and undermine public health measures meant to protect all of us. In response, the College released the statement below. The statement is intended to focus on professional behaviour and is not intended to stifle a healthy public debate about how to best address aspects of the pandemic. Rather, our focus is on addressing those arguments that reject scientific evidence and seek to rouse emotions over reason. We continue to recognize the important roles physicians can play by advocating for change in a socially accountable manner.

CPSO Statement:

The College is aware and concerned about the increase of misinformation circulating on social media and other platforms regarding physicians who are publicly contradicting public health orders and recommendations. Physicians hold a unique position of trust with the public and have a professional responsibility to not communicate anti-vaccine, anti-masking, anti-distancing and anti-lockdown statements and/or promoting unsupported, unproven treatments for COVID-19. Physicians must not make comments or provide advice that encourages the public to act contrary to public health orders and recommendations. Physicians who put the public at risk may face an investigation by the CPSO and disciplinary action, when warranted. When offering opinions, physicians must be guided by the law, regulatory standards, and the code of ethics and professional conduct. The information shared must not be misleading or deceptive and must be supported by available evidence and science.

May 6, 2021

Google’s Jigsaw unit sponsors a RAND report that recommends infiltrating and subverting online conspiracy groups from within while planting authoritative messaging wherever possible.

With a focus on online chatter relating to alien visitations, COVID-19 origins, white genocide, and anti-vaccination, the Google-sponsored RAND report published last week shows how machine learning can help detect and understand the language used by “conspiracy theorists.”

While the 108-page report can be highly technical in describing machine learning approaches for identifying and making sense of conspiracy language online, here we’re not going to focus on any of that.

Instead, we will zoom-in on the report’s “Policy Recommendations for Mitigating the Spread of and Harm from Conspiracy Theories” section and attempt to see how they might be received in the real world.

“Conspiracists have their own experts on whom they lean to support and strengthen their views […] One alternative approach could be to direct outreach toward moderate members of those groups who could, in turn, exert influence on the broader community” — RAND report

Diving into the report’s policy recommendations, they all have one thing in common — they all seek to plant authoritative messaging wherever possible while making it seem more organic, or to make the messaging more relatable to the intended audience at the very least.

The four policy recommendations are:

  1. Transparent and Empathetic Engagement with Conspiracists
  2. Correcting Conspiracy-Related False News
  3. Engagement with Moderate Members of Conspiracy Groups
  4. Addressing of Fears and Existential Threats

The original narrative from authoritative sources always stays the same, but the message is usually filtered through intermediaries that act like marketing, advertising, and PR firms.

What follows doesn’t have anything to do with the validity of any conspiracy theory, but rather focuses on the Google-sponsored RAND report’s messaging strategy through the following lens:

Are ‘conspiracy theorists’ more likely to believe an authoritative message when it comes from someone else?

Or

Are they more likely to focus on the validity of the message itself without placing all their trust on the messenger?

The Google-sponsored RAND report recommends that the government bet on the former.

But could such a move actually encourage the latter?

It’s a message versus messenger type of debate.

Let’s dig in.

“A common thread among all the conspiracy groups was distrust of conventional authority figures” — RAND Report

To begin, Jigsaw’s latest collaboration with the RAND Corporation reveals that across the board “conspiracy theorists” show a high distrust of “conventional authority figures” while preferring “their own experts on whom they lean to support and strengthen their views.”

The idea of distrust in conventional authority will be a major theme throughout this story as the RAND report promotes subversion from within, planting conventional authority messaging among certain members of the community and hoping it will spread.

The report suggests that conspiracy theorists won’t listen to conventional authority, but they’ll listen to leaders in their groups, so the plan is to target potential influencers in online conspiracy groups who are somewhat on the fence and could tow the conventional authority line.

For example, the report recommends infiltrating and subverting online conspiracy chatter by singling out the more “moderate members” of the group who could become social media influencers in their own rite.

“Evidence suggests that more than one-quarter of adults in North America believe in one or more conspiracies” — RAND report

According to the report, “Conspiracists have their own experts on whom they lean to support and strengthen their views, and their reliance on these experts might limit the impact of formal outreach by public health professionals. [all emphases are mine]

“Our review of the literature shows that one alternative approach could be to direct outreach toward moderate members of those groups who could, in turn, exert influence on the broader community.”

So the logic goes:

  • Problem – Conspiracists have their own experts
  • Solution – Direct outreach toward moderate members
  • Purpose – Exert influence on the broader community

In other words, they want to turn those who aren’t completely onboard with the entirety of the conspiracy into social media influencers for their authoritative marketing campaigns.

But what would be the incentive to flip?

“Commercial marketing programs use a similar approach when they engage social media influencers (or brand ambassadors)” — RAND report

The report goes on to say, “Commercial marketing programs use a similar approach when they engage social media influencers (or brand ambassadors), who can then credibly communicate advantages of a commercial brand to their own audiences on social media.”

Incentivizing social media influencers to become ambassadors for a specific brand means the influencers benefit by getting paid, and the companies benefit by reaching a wider audience.

It’s a deal driven by financial incentives in order to gain more influence.

But again, what’s the incentive for “moderate members” of so-called conspiracy groups to flip?

What would a moderate member gain by not only denouncing their former beliefs, but to be a continuous bullhorn shouting at people as one who has seen the folly of their ways?

Would it be for moral reasons, or for some other type of gain?

“It might be possible to convey key messages to those who are only ‘vaccine hesitant,’ and these individuals might, in turn, relay such messages to those on antivaccination social media channels” — RAND report

Remembering that all four chatter groups studied have a distrust of conventional authority figures, RAND suggests using the more easily-persuaded in the group (moderates who aren’t fully convinced) to carry out the messaging of conventional authority figures on their behalf.

With regards to “anti-vax” groups the report suggests, “it might be possible to convey key messages to those who are only ‘vaccine hesitant,’ and these individuals might, in turn, relay such messages to those on antivaccination social media channels.”

This tactic of being sneaky about where the messaging is coming from may be one of the reasons why people don’t trust conventional authority in the first place — a lack of transparency.

The Google-backed RAND report attempts to balance its infiltration and subversion technique by recommending another approach: transparency via “transparent and empathetic engagement with conspiracists.”

“Instead of confrontation,” the report reads, “it might be more effective to engage transparently with conspiracists and express sensitivity. Public health communicators recommend engagements that communicate in an open and evidence-informed way—creating safe spaces to encourage dialogue, fostering community partnerships, and countering misinformation with care.”

In any case, all efforts at “mitigating the spread and harm from online conspiracy theories” are aimed at directing users to accept the very sources they trust the least — conventional authority.

“An additional technique beyond flagging specific conspiracy content is facilitated dialogue, in which a third party facilitates communication (either in person or apart) between conflict parties,” — RAND report

Another example of transparent and empathetic engagement suggested in the report has to do with outsourcing the authoritative messaging to third-parties.

“An additional technique beyond flagging specific conspiracy content is facilitated dialogue, in which a third party facilitates communication (either in person or apart) between conflict parties,” the report suggests.

This third party approach “could improve communication between authoritative communities (such as doctors or government leaders) and conspiracy communities.”

Again, the logic goes:

  • Problem: Conspiracy communities neither trust nor interact with authoritative communities
  • Solution: Third party facilitates communication
  • Purpose: To improve communication between authoritative communities and conspiracy communities

Alternative Avenues for Authoritative Messaging

So far, we’ve discussed two of the four recommendations made in the report:

1. Engaging moderate members of conspiracy groups
2. Facilitating third party dialogues

Both of these recommendations are about finding ways to disseminate authoritative messaging.

The remaining two recommendations have the same purpose:

3. Providing corrections to conspiracy-related false news
4. Intervening to address fears and limit potential societal harms

With respect to correcting “false news,” the report suggests that public health practitioners use their positions of authority to “correct instances of misinformation using such tools as real-time corrections, crowdsourced fact-checking, and algorithmic tagging.”

On the addressing fears front, this tactic is a means of persuasion by “using the intended audience’s values rather than the speaker’s values” to get the authoritative message across.”

I came away from this report with a couple of observations:

  1. The authors recognize that conspiracy theorists don’t trust conventional authority
  2. Despite this recognition, the authors don’t try to alter the message — just the messenger

This led me to the inference that the authors don’t see the problem as being the authoritative message, which makes sense since it’s coming from them, but rather the authoritative messenger itself.

Therefore, all of their suggestions are about staying the course on the narrative while filtering it through anybody who isn’t them. It’s a marketing thing.

Message vs Messenger

Which do you believe is more important for discerning theories of any type — the message or the messenger?

A good message can fall on deaf ears if the messenger isn’t trusted, and a bad message can negatively influence audiences when the messenger is blindly trusted.

I don’t place any judgment on what basically boils down to pure marketing tactics in the recommendations, but I do question:

Are ‘conspiracists’ more likely to place their trust in the message over the messenger, or vice versa? 

From what I see, the authorities are betting on the belief that if they can just gain influence over the messenger, then their message might prevail.

Analysis: Possible Future Outcomes

I see multiple possible outcomes from taking this bet and applying the report’s recommendations in real life:

  • People will blindly follow whatever influencers in their group have to say:
    • If authoritative messaging is successful, moderate members flip to become influencers and help guide the flock to greener pastures as ‘brand ambassadors’ for the common good, teaching others the errors of their ways.
    • If authoritative messaging is unsuccessful and the subversion fails, the moderate member is elevated to the status of anti-establishment influencer, will be positively seen by the group as ‘not selling out,’ and the group still won’t trust conventional authority.
  • The authorities ask third parties to do their talking:
    • If third party dialogues are successful, the conspiracy theorists will have all of their doubts answered and backed by claims from authoritative sources that are presented in a way that resonates with them, so they can better understand the overall picture and reject conspiracies. Both sides are willing to cede some ground.
    • If third parties don’t succeed in addressing all of the group members’ concerns, the authoritative message will be remembered by conspiracists, and every time they hear the same authoritative rhetoric, they will immediately distrust it, no matter who it comes from.
  • Algorithms will identify and flag any messaging that goes against the mainstream narrative and provide alternative context (something big tech already does):
    • Some conspiracy group members will be persuaded by the bombardment of content flagged by algorithms, and they will slowly come around to believing that the fact-checkers are right by the sheer volume of evidence and/or peer pressure to conform.
    • Conspiracy group members already don’t trust authority, so the warning labels will do nothing but strengthen their resolve.
  • Authorities engage directly in civil conversation with conspiracy theorists:
    • Adversaries come together, and they find some common ground. Both sides acknowledge where they’ve made mistakes while respecting each others’ differences, so long as nobody is causing harm. Agree to disagree on some points while conceding others. There may not be a consensus where one side is an obvious winner, but some level of understanding is gained and can be incorporated into future dialogues.
    • Adversaries come together, and they can’t agree on anything. Two versions of reality exist, and no one can establish a basic set of ‘facts’ that would form the basis of any rational argument. Agree to disagree on everything. Nothing is gained.

With the above scenarios, which are by no means exhaustive, I attempted to see how each recommendation could theoretically play out in the real world while trying to take of both sides’ points of view into account.

As long as the authorities don’t call for infringing on the rights of individuals (including conspiracy theorists), is there anything wrong with some of their more subversive tactics if they’re for the greater good and done with the best intentions?

And shouldn’t any theory, conspiratorial or not, collapse when presented with irrefutable evidence to the contrary?

The reality is that the strongest arguments don’t always win out, and humans are stubborn creatures. It takes a lot to knock down long-held beliefs without some type of profound revelation taking place within the individual.

“Removal of sarcastic discourse could reduce the signal-to-noise ratio between conspiracy and non-conspiracy discussions, providing a much clearer view of the characteristic stance found in conspiracies propagated on social media” — RAND report

Personally, I think the rift between conventional authorities and conspiracy groups is too great.

Authoritative messages may get through to some conspiracy theorists, but overall, I don’t think either side is going to be persuaded in any meaningful way that would effect real change.

Trying to infiltrate groups and subvert certain members seems like a tactic that would be perceived as an intrusion that furthers the divide and lead to even less trust, but we shall see how it all plays out.

If you’re looking for some background information on the report, below are a few snippets about its origins, data collection methods, and other findings. All bullet points are direct quotes from the report.

Next on the horizon, they’ll be going after sarcasm.

Report Origins:

  • Google’s Jigsaw unit asked RAND Corporation researchers to conduct a modeling effort to improve machine-learning technology for detecting conspiracy theory language by using linguistic and rhetorical theory to boost performance.
  • This research was sponsored by Google’s Jigsaw unit and conducted within the International Security and Defense Policy (ISDP) Center of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD).
  • NSRD conducts research and analysis for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the US Intelligence Community, US State Department, allied foreign governments, and foundations.

Data Collection Methods:

  • Data collection was conducted through the social media tracking company Brandwatch.
  • Social media sources were Twitter, Reddit, and a large selection of online forums and blogs. We also used one-off sources, such as the transcript of the ‘Plandemic’ viral video (2020).
  • Report studied four specific conspiracy theory topics: alien visitation, anti-vaccination content, COVID-19 origins, and White Genocide (WG).
Source: RAND

Findings on Conspiracy Theorists:

  • A common thread among all the conspiracy groups was distrust of conventional authority figures.
  • Evidence suggests that more than one-quarter of adults in North America believe in one or more conspiracies.
  • Pro-conspiracy theorists also find themselves wading deeper into social media–based echo chambers with decreasing exposure to non- conspiracy viewpoints.
    • These echo chambers contribute to a deepening polarization of viewpoints, and the posts disseminated within such echo chambers can reach and influence the broader internet.

Removing Sarcasm on the Horizon

  • One particular data quality Data and Methodology issue is the contamination of conspiracy discourse through sarcasm or quotation.
  • Determining whether certain social media comments are sarcastic can be particularly confusing even for humans, especially without context of the greater conversation.
  • Removal of sarcastic discourse could reduce the signal-to-noise ratio between conspiracy and non-conspiracy discussions, providing a much clearer view of the characteristic stance found in conspiracies propagated on social media.

I recommend downloading the full Google-sponsored RAND report here because it goes into great detail about their data collection methods and inferences, along with studies that helped the authors formulate their recommendations

May 5, 2021

Cornell defends non white, BIPOC-only rock-climbing class after online uproar

Cornell University is defending a new rock-climbing class offered to minority groups.

Among the Ivy League school’s Outdoor Education offerings for the spring 2021 semester was a course called “BIPOC Rock Climbing.” The course description, according to the Cornell Daily Sun, specified that the class was “for people who identify as Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color.”

That prompted an uproar from across the internet. The university was accused of violating federal and state civil rights law, while one Reddit user decried what they described as a “horrifically and monstrously racist practice that has no place in the modern world” and “literally evil.”

Earlier this year, the course description for “BIPOC Rock Climbing” was changed to read: “This class is designed to enable Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, or other people of color underrepresented in the sport of rock climbing to learn the sport and to feel included and supported. The class is open to all Cornell students interested in learning rock climbing with this special focus.”

University spokesperson John Carberry told the Daily Sun on Monday that while such classes “may include a focus on students with specific identities, they are not restricted to only those students.

“Cornell offers many programs that support interests and perspectives of different parts of our community,” he added. “We encourage any student who is interested to take advantage of the unique opportunities across campus to learn from and with the many diverse perspectives and voices across campus.”

With the semester winding down, students and instructors defended the course’s emphasis on non-white students. One student, freshman Thomas Gambra, told the Daily Sun that “[h]earing people complain about this class, saying it’s taking away from our white peers is laughable and frustrating.”

May 5, 2021

Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Climate Change Predictions – Competitive Enterprise Institute

[Original Post Here] – [archive]

Modern doomsayers have been predicting climate and environmental disaster since the 1960s. They continue to do so today.

None of the apocalyptic predictions with due dates as of today have come true.

What follows is a collection of notably wild predictions from notable people in government and science.

More than merely spotlighting the failed predictions, this collection shows that the makers of failed apocalyptic predictions often are individuals holding respected positions in government and science.

While such predictions have been and continue to be enthusiastically reported by a media eager for sensational headlines, the failures are typically not revisited.

1967: ‘Dire famine by 1975.’

Source: Salt Lake Tribune, November 17, 1967

1969: ‘Everyone will disappear in a cloud of blue steam by 1989.’

Source: New York Times, August 10 1969

1970: Ice age by 2000

Source: Boston Globe, April 16, 1970

1970: ‘America subject to water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980.’

For the rest, read the original article here

(more…)

May 4, 2021

Big Pharma, Globalists, Social Media Censorship and Threats, Censorship of Anyone Daring to Post Alternative Coronavirus Treatments – Dr. Mercola

Over the past year, I’ve been researching and writing as much as I can to help you take control of your health, as fearmongering media and corrupt politicians have destroyed lives and livelihoods to establish global control of the world’s population, using the COVID-19 pandemic as their justification.

I’ve also kept you informed about billionaire-backed front groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), a partner of Bill Gates’ Alliance for Science, both of whom have led campaigns aimed at destroying my reputation and censoring the information I share.

Other attackers include HealthGuard, which ranks health sites based on a certain set of “credibility criteria.” It has sought to discredit my website by ensuring warnings appear whenever you search for my articles or enter my website in an internet browser.

Well-Organized Attack Partnerships Have Formed

HealthGuard, a niche service of NewsGuard, is funded by the pharma-funded public relations company Publicis Groupe. Publicis, in turn, is a partner of the World Economic Forum, which is leading the call for a “Great Reset” of the global economy and a complete overhaul of our way of life.

HealthGuard is also partnered with Gates’ Microsoft company, and drug advertising websites like WebMD and Medscape, as well as the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) — the progressive cancel-culture leader with extensive ties to government and global think tanks that recently labeled people questioning the COVID-19 vaccine as a national security threat.

The CCDH has published a hit list naming me as one of the top 12 individuals responsible for 65% of vaccine “disinformation” on social media, and who therefore must be deplatformed and silenced for the public good. In a March 24, 2021, letter1 to the CEO’s of Twitter and Facebook, 12 state attorneys general called for the removal of our accounts from these platforms, based on the CCDH’s report.

Two of those state attorneys general also published an April 8, 2021, op-ed2 in The Washington Post, calling on Facebook and Twitter to ban the “anti-vaxxers” identified by the CCDH. The lack of acceptance of novel gene therapy technology, they claim, is all because a small group of individuals with a social media presence — myself included — are successfully misleading the public with lies about nonexistent vaccine risks.

“The solution is not complicated. It’s time for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to turn off this toxic tap and completely remove the small handful of individuals spreading this fraudulent misinformation,” they wrote.3

Pharma-funded politicians and pharma-captured health agencies have also relentlessly attacked me and pressured tech monopolies to censor and deplatform me, removing my ability to express my opinions and speak freely over the past year.

The CCDH also somehow has been allowed to publish4 in the journal Nature Medicine, calling for the “dismantling” of the “anti-vaccine” industry. In the article, CCDH founder Imran Ahmed repeats the lie that he “attended and recorded a private, three-day meeting of the world’s most prominent anti-vaxxers,” when, in fact, what he’s referring to was a public online conference open to an international audience, all of whom had access to the recordings as part of their attendance fee.

The CCDH is also partnered with another obscure group called Anti-Vax Watch. The picture below is from an Anti-Vax Watch demonstration outside the halls of Congress. Ironically, while the CCDH claims to be anti-extremism, you’d be hard-pressed to find a clearer example of actual extremism than this bizarre duo.5

Gates-Funded Doctor Demands Terrorist Experts to Attack Me

Most recently, Dr. Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute,6 which has received tens of millions of dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation,7,8,9 — with funds from the foundation most recently being used to create a report called “Meeting the Challenge of Vaccine Hesitancy,”10,11 — also cited the CCDH in a Nature article in which he calls for cyberwarfare experts to be enlisted in the war against vaccine safety advocates and people who are “vaccine hesitant.” He writes:12

“Accurate, targeted counter-messaging from the global health community is important but insufficient, as is public pressure on social-media companies. The United Nations and the highest levels of government must take direct, even confrontational, approaches with Russia, and move to dismantle anti-vaccine groups in the United States.

Efforts must expand into the realm of cyber security, law enforcement, public education and international relations. A high-level inter-agency task force reporting to the UN secretary-general could assess the full impact of anti-vaccine aggression, and propose tough, balanced measures.

The task force should include experts who have tackled complex global threats such as terrorism, cyber attacks and nuclear armament, because anti-science is now approaching similar levels of peril. It is becoming increasingly clear that advancing immunization requires a counteroffensive.”

Why is Hotez calling for the use of warfare tactics on American citizens that have done nothing illegal? In my case, could it be because I’ve written about the theory that SARS-CoV-2 is an engineered virus, created through gain-of-function research, and that its release was anticipated by global elites, as evidenced in Event 201?

It may be. At least those are some of my alleged “sins,” detailed on page 10 of the CCDH report, “Disinformation Dozen: The Sequel.”13 Coincidentally enough, the Nature journal has helped cover up gain-of-function research conducted at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, publishing a shoddy zoonotic origins study relied upon my mainstream media and others, which was riddled with problems.14,15

So, it’s not misinformation they are afraid of. They’re afraid of the truth getting out. They’re all trying to cover for the Chinese military and the dangerous mad scientists conducting gain-of-function work.

You may have noticed our website was recently unavailable; this was due to direct cyber-attacks launched against us. We have several layers of protective mechanisms to secure the website as we’ve anticipated such attacks from malevolent organizations.

What This Means for You

Through these progressively increasing stringent measures, I have refused to succumb to these governmental and pharmaceutical thugs and their relentless attacks. I have been confident and willing to defend myself in the court of law, as I’ve had everything reviewed by some of the best attorneys in the country.

Unfortunately, threats have now become very personal and have intensified to the point I can no longer preserve much of the information and research I’ve provided to you thus far. These threats are not legal in nature, and I have limited ability to defend myself against them. If you can imagine what billionaires and their front groups are capable of, I can assure you they have been creative in deploying their assets to have this content removed.

Sadly, I must also remove my peer reviewed published study16 on the “Evidence Regarding Vitamin D and Risk of COVID-19 and Its Severity.” It will, however, remain in the highly-respected journal Nutrients’ website, where you can still access it for free.

The MATH+ hospital treatment protocol for COVID-19 and the iMASK+ prevention and early outpatient COVID-19 protocol — both of which are based on the use of vitamins C, D, quercetin, zinc and melatonin — are available on the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance’s website. I suggest you bookmark these resources for future reference.

It is with a heavy heart that I purge my website of valuable information. As noted by Dr. Peter McCullough during a recent Texas state Senate Health and Human Services Committee hearing, data shows early treatment could have prevented up to 85% (425,000) of COVID-19 deaths.17 Yet early treatments were all heavily censored and suppressed.

McCullough, in addition to being a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the Texas A&M University Health Sciences Center, also has the distinction of having published the most papers of any person in the history of his field, and being an editor of two major medical journals. Despite that, his video, in which he went through a paper he’d published detailing effective early treatments, was summarily banned by YouTube in 2020.

“No wonder we have had 45,000 deaths in Texas. The average person in Texas thinks there’s no treatment!” McCullough told the senate panel.18 Indeed, people are in dire need of more information detailing how they can protect their health, not less. But there’s only so much I can do to protect myself against current attack strategies.

They’ve moved past censorship. Just what do you call people who advocate counteroffensive attacks by terrorism and cyberwarfare experts? You’d think we could have a debate and be protected under free speech but, no, we’re not allowed. These lunatics are dangerously unhinged.

The U.S. federal government is going along with the global Great Reset plan (promoted as “building back better”), but this plan won’t build anything but a technological prison. What we need is a massive campaign to preserve civil rights, and vote out the pawns who are destroying our freedom while concentrating wealth and power.

May 4, 2021

Open Letter from President of Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) to Universities: Allow Students Back Without COVID Vaccine Mandate – “the vaccines are not FDA approved to treat, cure or prevent any disease at this time”

Dear Deans, Governing Boards and Trustees,

On behalf of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, I am writing to ask you to reconsider your new policy mandating COVID-19 vaccination of students prior to returning to campus.[i] Institutions of higher learning are divided on this issue.[ii] ,[iii] Although, at first glance, the policy may seem prudent, it coerces students into bearing unneeded and unknown risk and is at heart contrary to the bedrock medical principle of informed consent.

There are multiple reasons to reverse your policy. I ask you to consider the following:

  1. Young adults are a healthy and immunologically competent and vibrant group that is at, “extraordinary low risk for COVID-19 morbidity and mortality.”[iv]
  2. College and University students, however, are under significant mental health strain already from COVID-19 fears, circumstances, distance learning problems and the imposition of government health policy restrictions.[v]
  3. Even though the FDA granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for three COVID-19 vaccines, they are not FDA approved to treat, cure or prevent any disease at this time.  Clinical trials will continue for at least two years before the FDA can even consider approval of these vaccines as effective and safe.
  4. The COVID-19 vaccines on the market in the U.S., mRNA (Moderna and Pfizer) and DNA (Johnson & Johnson – Janssen), have caused notable side effects, pathology and even death (>2300 deaths per VAERS as of  April 20, 2021). These adverse reactions result in absence from school and work, hospital visits, and even loss of life.[vi]
  5. College-age women may be at unique risk for adverse events following administration of the experimental COVID vaccinations currently available. According to the CDC, all cases of life-threatening blood clots, subsequent to receiving the J&J vaccine, reported so far in the United States, occurred in younger women.[vii]  The vast majority of cases of anaphylaxis have also occurred in women.[viii] In addition, “women are reporting having irregular menstrual cycles after getting the coronavirus vaccine,”[ix] and 95 miscarriages have been reported to the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID vaccination as of April 24, 2021.[x]
  6. Recent research data demonstrates that the spike protein, present on the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the induced primary mechanism of action of COVID-19 vaccines, are the primary cause of disease, infirmity, hospitalization and death.[xi]
  7. Students who have had self-limited cases of COVID-19 already possess antibodies, activated B-cells, activated T-cells (detectable by lab testing).  This durable, long-term immunity would not only prevent them from getting recurrent COVID-19, but would also represent herd immunity to protect others in the college or university community.[xii],[xiii]
  8. COVID-19 convalescent students may be harmed by college and university policy requiring COVID-19 vaccines.[xiv] They already have extensive immunity and would be likely harmed from a forced confrontation with COVID-19 vaccine induced spike protein causing autoimmune reactions leading to illness and possible death.[xv]
  9. Students and their families may justifiably believe these policies discriminate against individuals who aren’t candidates for this vaccine, have pre-existing conditions, previous COVID-19 disease, cite religious objections, or are otherwise exercising their freewill choosing not to participate in this optional vaccine experiment. Refer to the Nuremberg code from WWII, which requires individuals, “to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force….”[xvi]
  10. Institutional policies that permit faculty to choose or refuse vaccination, but do not allow students the same options, raise equal protection constitutional issues.
  11. The ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act, requires “reasonable accommodations,” be provided based on an individual’s own unique health situation.  This includes rejection of an experimental vaccine intervention which may exacerbate known health problems and thereby cause harm.
  12. Colleges and Universities should consider whether they might be liable for damages, poor health outcomes, and loss of life due to mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policies.[xvii]
  13. “Positive cases,” as defined by laboratory testing alone, may be false positive testing errors or asymptomatic infection that is not clinically proven to spread disease.
  14. Ambulatory outpatient early treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infection / COVID-19 has been demonstrated effective in adults.[xviii]
  15. Informed consent is the standard for all medical interventions. The FDA factsheet for the healthcare provider reads, “The recipient or their caregiver has the option to accept or refuse (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine.”

Please reverse your decision to mandate experimental COVID-19 vaccines before more students are harmed and make the vaccines rightfully optional. Both unvaccinated and vaccinated students should be permitted on campus. Thank you for your time and attention. We would appreciate hearing back from you as soon as possible and welcome further discussion with you and other leaders at your institution.

Sincerely,

Paul M. Kempen, M.D., Ph.D. – AAPS President (2021)

May 4, 2021

Bigotry of Low Expectations: “Blacks need to stop resisting police — but they won’t” And It Won’t Be Their Fault When They Are Killed

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who’s about as far left as far left goes, told “60 Minutes” host Scott Pelley that George Floyd bears zero responsibility for his own death — that it’s all due to police brutality, police racism, police officer Derek Chauvin’s brutal, racist acts.

This is a lie about Blacks and police that’s being replicated around the nation by leftists who want to destroy America.

Floyd may not be 100% responsible for his own death. Chauvin and his nine minutes of bearing down on Floyd’s neck certainly played into the final moments of life — and in fact, a jury just found the former officer guilty of unintentional second-degree murder, third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

But had Floyd simply done what police requested-slash-ordered, he’d most likely be alive today. And that’s a common denominator in many of the police officer interactions with Blacks that turn fatal that is always, always, always pushed aside by the press, by the leftist politicians, by the Black Lives Matter movement: When police are trying to do their jobs, it’s best not to resist.

Pelley to Ellison: Does Floyd bear any responsibility for the May 2020 events that led to his death?

Ellison to Pelley: “No, he doesn’t,” The Hill reported.

Pelley to Ellison: “If he’d gotten in the car, he’d be alive today.”

Ellison to Pelley: Floyd was just having a bad day and police, who are “trained to deal with people who are having problems,” ought to have recognized this and reacted accordingly.

“[If police can] use deadly force on people who are just having a bad day,” Ellison said, “then we’re going to be in a very, very lethal situation.”

Having a bad day?

Democrats have actually suggested sending out the psychologists in place of police. But that’s not a solution to criminal behavior. That’s an enabler.

Leftists are trying to create division in America and pit populations against each other, to cause the chaos to make the Constitution appear ineffective to justify the creation of a new form of government, a socialist form of government, a total top-down form of governance that empowers the collectivists while killing individualism. Leftists are actually trying to create race wars.

But the line that police awaken each day with the intent to hunt and kill young black males is ridiculous enough that even the most cursory glance at facts and stats underscores its lunacy.

Statista reports that in 2017, there were 223 Blacks shot and killed by police; in 2018, it was 209; in 2019, it was 235; in 2020, it was 241; and in 2021, so far, 30.

The same outlet reports that in 2017, there were 457 Whites shot and killed by police; in 2018, it was 399; in 2019, it was 370; in 2020, it was 457; and in 2021, so far, 50.

The left rebuts these facts with percentages — by arguing that Blacks only account for just over 13% of the nation’s total population, while Whites, about 73%.

But consider this: Statista also found that in 2017, police shot and killed 179 Hispanics or Latinos; in 2018, it was 148; in 2019, it was 158; in 2020, it was 169; and in 2021, so far, 20.

Hispanics and Latinos make up almost 17% of America’s population.

How come we’re not talking about police targeting to kill Hispanics?

Where’s the Hispanics Lives Matter movement, with the accompanying Democratic Party blind eye support of brick-throwing good times in the streets, masked as First Amendment peaceful protests?

It’s a lie. It’s all deception. The whole police-murder-Blacks message from the left is lie and deception.

If the Black male Michael Brown in 2014 had not struggled with the White officer, Darren Wilson, then the Black male Michael Brown would probably be alive today. If the Black male Rayshard Brooks had not struggled with officers after they awakened him at the Wendy’s drive-through line in Atlanta, then the Black male Rayshard Brooks would probably be alive today. If the Black male Daniel Prude had not struggled with officers after they apprehended him running naked through the streets of Rochester, then the Black male Daniel Prude would probably be alive today.

This list goes on. See the theme?

May 4, 2021

Biden to Use Private Companies to Spy On American Citizens Accused of Wrongthink – Without a Warrant

“The plan being discussed inside DHS, according to multiple sources, would, in effect, allow the department to circumvent” laws that limit what the federal government can do in surveilling U.S. citizens without a warrant. A source familiar with the effort said it is not about decrypting data but rather using outside entities who can legally access these private groups to gather large amounts of information that could help DHS identify key narratives as they emerge.”

“Gathering information on US citizens — no matter how abhorrent their beliefs — raises instant constitutional and legal challenges. Civil liberties advocates and privacy hawks have long criticized any efforts to collect even publicly available information on Americans in bulk as a violation of Americans’ First and Fourth Amendment rights.”

May 1, 2021

Flawed PCR Testing: Your Coronavirus Test Is Positive. Maybe It Shouldn’t Be – from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles

In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found.

On Thursday, the United States recorded 45,604 new coronavirus cases, according to a database maintained by The Times. If the rates of contagiousness in Massachusetts and New York were to apply nationwide, then perhaps only 4,500 of those people may actually need to isolate and submit to contact tracing.

One solution would be to adjust the cycle threshold used now to decide that a patient is infected. Most tests set the limit at 40, a few at 37. This means that you are positive for the coronavirus if the test process required up to 40 cycles, or 37, to detect the virus.

Tests with thresholds so high may detect not just live virus but also genetic fragments, leftovers from infection that pose no particular risk — akin to finding a hair in a room long after a person has left, Dr. Mina said.

Any test with a cycle threshold above 35 is too sensitive, agreed Juliet Morrison, a virologist at the University of California, Riverside. “I’m shocked that people would think that 40 could represent a positive,” she said.

A more reasonable cutoff would be 30 to 35, she added. Dr. Mina said he would set the figure at 30, or even less. Those changes would mean the amount of genetic material in a patient’s sample would have to be 100-fold to 1,000-fold that of the current standard for the test to return a positive result — at least, one worth acting on.

In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. “I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,” he said.

Other experts informed of these numbers were stunned.

“I’m really shocked that it could be that high — the proportion of people with high C.T. value results,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. “Boy, does it really change the way we need to be thinking about testing.”

May 1, 2021

Trust the “Science” and doctors – “In October 2009, Anthony Fauci appeared on YouTube to reassure Americans about the safety of the swine flu vaccine. “The vaccine has been thoroughly tested,” they declared in a joint statement. Except, it hadn’t.”

Adverse event tables embedded in nine reports spanning the four months between December 2009 and March 2010 offer a glimpse into the vaccines’ safety profiles.

“When I saw those tables, I just fell off the chair. A consumer can figure out what’s going on here,”

Jefferson told me (table 1). Jefferson immediately calculated the adverse event rates for each vaccine, which showed large differences between Pandemrix and Arepanrix. Any real differences between the vaccines would be especially alarming because Pandemrix and Arepanrix are, broadly speaking, the same vaccine manufactured in different facilities and used in different countries. Divergent rates of adverse events might implicate a manufacturing problem.

“The odds ratios, the point estimates, are all high. And some of them are significantly high—5.39 [95% confidence interval 3.70 to 7.85] for deaths [for Pandemrix v the other vaccines],” Jefferson said.

“The thing that struck me was not just that the odds ratios were high, but the fact that nobody had tabulated and analysed them,” he said, pointing out that the GSK reports provided numerator and denominator data sufficient to calculate the odds ratios but did not actually contain those calculations.

The BMJ conducted its own analysis of the adverse events, most of which seem to have been reported spontaneously to GSK (figs 1 and 2). For a range of concerning adverse events, reports were coming in for Pandemrix at a consistently higher rate than for the other two GSK pandemic vaccines–four times the rate of facial palsy, eight times the rate of serious adverse events, nine times the rate of convulsions. Overall, Pandemrix had, proportionally, five times more adverse events reported than Arepanrix and the unadjuvanted vaccine. And the raw numbers of adverse events were not small. Although it is often said that perhaps only up to 10% of adverse events are reported to national reporting systems,16 by late November, GSK had received 1138 serious adverse event reports for Pandemrix—a rate of 76 per million doses administered. By mid-December, there had been 3280 serious adverse event reports (68/million doses). The last report seen by The BMJ, dated 31 March 2010, shows 5069 serious adverse events for Pandemrix (72/million doses), seven times the rate for Arepanrix and the unadjuvanted vaccine combined.

The data are insufficient to draw conclusions about cause and effect, but for Gillian O’Connor, the solicitor representing Bennett, they raise serious questions about transparency. The disparity, she wrote in an affidavit filed in court, was “of such striking difference that any person contemplating taking the Pandemrix vaccine would be likely, if in receipt of this information, not to choose to have the Pandemrix vaccination.”

Alarm bells that never rang

But neither GSK nor the health authorities seem to have made the information public—nor is it clear that the disparity was investigated. This is in contrast to the reaction to narcolepsy, which quickly made news headlines and was the subject of a GSK press release and investigation17 in a matter of weeks after the first reports from Sweden and Finland.

In many of the GSK reports, the company briefly mentions having conducted “safety reviews”—for example, with respect to anaphylaxis, facial palsy, and Guillain-Barré syndrome. The BMJ asked GSK for a copy of those reviews but it did not provide them.

In a statement, GSK wrote: “After the introduction of Pandemrix, GSK continuously evaluated all available safety data and shared the data with the EMA and other regulatory authorities where the vaccine was licensed so that the authorities could conduct their own independent assessments. EMA made weekly summaries of the data provided by GSK and other manufacturers publicly accessible and they remain accessible through the EMA’s website.”

The BMJ asked GSK whether it ever undertook any investigations to understand the discrepancy in adverse event reporting between Pandemrix and Arepanrix, whether it notified healthcare providers about the discrepancies, whether it considered pulling Pandemrix from the market, or considered recommending Arepanrix or another company’s vaccine. But GSK declined to answer these and all of The BMJ’s questions, citing ongoing litigation.

The BMJ asked the UK Department of Health why it recommended Pandemrix over Baxter’s Celvapan, but the department also declined to comment, calling the question “quite technical” and suggesting we submit a freedom of information request for an answer.

In December 2009 demonstrators in Scotland took to the streets to challenge the government’s swine flu vaccine campaign arguing it was out of step with the mild pandemic.18

Avoidable catastrophe

The vaccination programme continued in Ireland as well. “The Irish government kept inviting people to get vaccinated,” Jefferson observed. “This was when it was quite clear that the pandemic was on the wane and it was nowhere near the catastrophe portrayed by influenza researchers, governments, industry, and the media.”

Clare Daly, a member of the Irish parliament, called the adverse events after Pandemrix a “completely avoidable catastrophe,” and has been demanding answers for over a year.19 In the Irish National Assembly last year, she told the then prime minister, Enda Kenny, “The Health Service Executive (HSE) decided to purchase Pandemrix and continued to distribute it even after they knew it was dangerous and untested, and before most of the public in Ireland received it.”

Pandemrix and Arepanrix were designed for a pandemic and were removed from global markets after the pandemic. Whatever adverse events they may have caused, they are vaccines of the past. But the events of 2009-10 raise fundamental questions about the transparency of information. When do public health officials have a duty to warn the public over possible harms of vaccines detected through pharmacovigilance? How much detail should the public be provided with, who should provide it, and should the provision of such information be proactive or passive?

If history were to repeat itself, does the public have a right to know?